Retired scientist’s influence still felt at Sandia today
Anita Renlund's work changed how Sandia understands explosives, but fewer people know of the impact she left on her colleagues.
Anita Renlund's work changed how Sandia understands explosives, but fewer people know of the impact she left on her colleagues.
The upgrade added new hardware necessary to recover the vehicle and new onboard memory chips, which researchers can retrieve after launch to gather 40 times more data than in previous missions.
Secretary of Energy Honor Awards announced
Sandia has won six prestigious regional Federal Laboratory Consortium awards this year for responding with innovative solutions during the pandemic, developing solar cell and hydrogen research technology and creatively working with companies.
Jackie Chen, whose work on fundamental turbulence-chemistry interactions in combustion helped advance the design of automotive, gas turbine and jet engines, has been selected by DOE as a distinguished scientist fellow — one of only eight researchers in the nation to hold the distinction.
Sandians were members of several teams honored in November by then Energy Secretary Rick Perry in a ceremony at DOE headquarters. The teams received Secretary of Energy Achievement Awards, which recognize significant achievements by DOE employees and contractors.
The venerable R&D 100 contest, slightly more than 50 years old, has a new owner, and the competition continues. Competing in an international pool of universities, corporations and government labs, Sandia inventions captured four R&D 100 Awards this year, as well as two environmental and one business award.
Researchers at Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility are working to understand the fundamentals of phi-sensitivity, a key fuel property that represents how the autoignition reactivity of the fuel varies with the fuel/air equivalence ratio. This will help increase the efficiency and facilitate the development of practical low-temperature gasoline combustion engines.
An early milestone for developing missile technologies is to show they can work in computer simulations or large-scale field tests that shake and spin components without falling to pieces. Now, HOT SHOT sounding rocket data analysis has revealed a way to improve these tests, providing an earlier, more accurate indicator of whether an experimental technology will ultimately succeed in flight.
Jim McConnell, associate administrator for NNSA’s Office of Safety, Infrastructure and Operations, presented three Sandia project teams with NA-50 Awards of Excellence during a July ceremony at Sandia’s Albuquerque campus.